Yesterday, four years ago, I made a promise. To make the world a little better. For real. And without excuses. When your child is placed in your arms, you don’t just receive love. You receive responsibility. Fear. Hope. And you make promises you may never say out loud. Promises about the person you will become. About the example you will set. About the world you will leave behind. I accepted those promises. And the challenge. The only problem was knowing where to start. How do you change the...
1 day ago • 1 min read
Many people think success is about talent. Or discipline. Or knowledge. You don’t need to go to a political rally to know that they're wrong. More often than not, you’re brain, and then your chances of success are shaped by proximity. Spend enough time around people who complain, and complaining starts to feel normal. Spend enough time around people who think small, and ambition begins to look unrealistic. Spend enough time on projects where mediocrity is accepted, and your own standards...
3 days ago • 1 min read
You can start today: Read the contract. Just choose one paragraph. Visit the site. Close one old action. Record one decision. Challenge one assumption in your team. Speak to the operator. Raise a problem early, right now is good. Do what you said you would do. Check with a stakeholder their thoughts about your project None of this should set you apart. It does. Excellence in infrastructure is rarely extraordinary. It is common sense, applied consistently. Use this information at your own...
4 days ago • 1 min read
Knowing is not enough. Working is not enough. Probably, you already know that… or maybe not. After many years of being a CEO, I tell you what works. You need to be seen knowing and working. That’s it. Being nice gets you accommodation. People will like having you around. They may even thank you. But being useful, visible and difficult to overlook is what makes you progress. This doesn’t mean shouting louder than everyone else. It means making your contribution impossible to misunderstand....
5 days ago • 1 min read
Millions of people gathered around the same event. Millions of people with something in common. A couple of weeks have passed, but I’m Spanish, so I remember it well… even if Messi wants to forget. Around 3 hours. People had no time to go to the gym. No time to read a book. No time to study. No time to start that business idea. No time to cook before leaving home. Look, that’s perfectly fine. But… Next time you don’t do something, don’t say it’s because you don’t have time. Say it isn’t a...
6 days ago • 1 min read
Most people do not fail in negotiations. They simply aim too low. They enter the room hoping to: Reduce the increase. Limit the damage. Get something back. Avoid an argument. And then they celebrate a mediocre result because it was slightly better than the worst-case scenario. Perfect. If you’ve never felt that feeling… congrats. You’re probably never negotiated anything meaningful. For the rest… let me tell you that was my day to day. Every meeting. Clients, subbies, employees. Many years to...
6 days ago • 1 min read
Metronet was responsible for upgrading and maintaining most of the London Underground under one of the largest PPP programmes ever undertaken. The structure was sophisticated. The contracts were enormous. The advisers were experienced. And the incentives were fundamentally wrong. “That doesn’t apply to our project.” Of course not. Your project is unique. So was Metronet. Well… in our case. Metronet’s shareholders were also its principal suppliers. Con 2 c*jones… or with 2 eggs. Strong...
8 days ago • 1 min read
“Not for me.” Of course not. This is what some of you wrote to me yesterday. Your operator definitely did not price the contract as if KPI deductions did not exist. They definitely did not assume the client would pay every change at cost plus margin… once or twice a year. And your builder? Of course they brought people with real close-out experience. They know exactly where the records are. The test results. The as-builts. The approvals. The evidence the Independent Engineer needs before...
9 days ago • 1 min read
“That doesn’t apply to my case.” I hear this all the time. Different asset. Different contract. Different country. Different shareholders. Different problems. My project is special. Of course, it is. Even the air you breath is. Look. Assets, projects, SPV, your toilet, whatever… are not making you suffer or smell bad odours because of a completely unique problem. The details are different. The patterns are not. It is the same in sales. Selling something for $5 and selling something for...
10 days ago • 1 min read